Thursday, October 19, 2006

The nazi of the feminine?

There is so much wrong with the latest Shortpacked! storyline, I don't know where to start. Not that it's not hilarious (because most of the wrongness is the kind I enjoy, mytaste kthx bye), but it's a little scary how close parody is from the parodied. Or how close it was until it was saved by getting wronger.

For those of you just tuning in, Galasso runs the toystore. Conquest (Connie?) is his daughter, ala Ra's al Ghul and Talia. Normally her purpose is to have sex with chosen men, because Galasso wants an heir, but now she's working in the toystore and... sex. Sex happens.

And there is something horrifically wrong/hilarious about him dismissing her claims to selling out their entire stock (of everything!) because she hasn't sexed up an heir, when she sold out their entire stock by giving away sex.

I was not liking this storyline until this strip. I mean, now is not the time for developing the only truly fleshed out character who seems to have a soul. Not that I expect characters in this comic to have morals (they don't, they sell toys), but the random attempt at poignancy in a Conquest storyline feels so very wrong.

So then Willis takes it way over the top. He makes something I've always been mildly uncomfortable with despite the Batman overtones (the pushing of your daughter onto the most eligible male), pairs it with Constance basically selling sex, and it all sort of drifts into really bad and terribly uncomfy territory until he gets Galasso to actually compare the two and, so in character, decide his plans are most important. And that's funny. Awfully, horribly funny.

The only reason I'm blogging about this, though, is because Willis linked to the strip with the word "feminazi" and after reading the comic, I decided I liked his usage. You figure it out.

3 comments:

"At core, Shortpacked is a humor story. It has a bit of drama, but that's not the point of the strip. The point of drama is not to cry or feel sad. The point of drama is to laugh at these people, to laugh cruelly at them"

and maritza also wrote:He doesn't tip-toe around the dangerous line between drama and comedy. He river-dances on it. He's not the only one who does this. Someone called Charles Schulz did too. He made us laugh at the misfortune of characters we loved very much.

But this is why I love Shortpacked the most when it's extra wrong. Being a little bit wrong can set the tone for regular drama, but when he pushes it way too far it'll have gone so far round it's that cruel comedy.